New frontiers for convenience dining: How airports lead the way

Ask the average Baby Boomer about their first self-serve kiosk experience, and they're likely to say it was an airport check-in. Since those ground breaking introductions more than 20 years ago, the travel industry has been at the forefront of digital innovation.

Today, travelers can order their meals on their smartphones while enroute to the airport. The entire check-in and boarding process can take place with minimal human interaction.

As a result, airports have become a testing ground for digital innovation for restaurants.

Burger King, for one, gained valuable insight from its airport dining initiative in its continuing quest to expand self-order kiosks to its restaurants nationwide.

During this month's Self-Service Innovation Summit in Miami, attendees got an inside view of Burger King's digital partnership with HMSHost, its airport foodservice partner. That partnership continues to guide both companies' digital journeys.

The session was titled, "Digital Innovation in Travel: Is the Next Frontier Airport Dining?"

"HMSHost and Burger King had been partners for many years, and together we've enhanced digital engagement in travel," Steven MacArthur-Brooks, director of non-traditional development, Burger King U.S. and Canada, Restaurant Brands International, said during a keynote presentation at the Loews Coral Gables.

MacArthur-Brooks shared the stage with Neil Thompson, vice president, digital, at HMSHost, in describing a partnership that has improved sales, customer experience and operational efficiencies for both companies.

"A lot of our views on the business, specifically QSR, were in sync and I think that partnership started and flourished," MacArthur-Brooks said, looking back to the time he met Thompson at the Salt Lake City airport, a flagship Burger King airport location.

Thompson's introduction to the digital realm was a "baptism by fire" when he assumed his digital role two and a half years ago during the pandemic. At the time, HMSHost took a 90% sales hit in a couple of days.

"The pandemic really changed our industry," Thompson said. "I felt fortunate to still be employed…When our CEO asked me to lead this job in digital I was glad to have a role."

He began this new role with extensive foodservice but minimal technology experience. He devoted himself to getting up to speed on technology and developing knowledge partners.

A key insight emerged in this journey when Thompson attended the 2021 Self-Service Innovation Summit during the keynote presentation by Raghu Sagi, chief information officer at Inspire Brands, which owns Arby's, Baskin Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic Drive-In, Rusty Taco and Jimmy John's restaurants. That insight had to do with digital transformation.

Sagi said that during the pandemic, his company witnessed a 43% one-year gain in digital sales and a significant gain in labor productivity.

"It was actually at this Summit where I came across some information that put it all into perspective for me," Thompson said. "It really kind of lit the dynamite that said what we really need to do to get better."

"You grew restaurants by adding people," he said, and the industry still largely depends on human labor for growth. "Our (restaurant industry) business model is tied to the least efficient and least productive."

Airports did have the advantage of having already digitized much of the customer journey over the prior 20 years. Hence, it was a good environment to introduce self-order kiosks.

Burger King, for its part, was excited about the fact that HMSHost listened to its guests and realized guests wanted a better airport dining experience, MacArthur-Brooks said.

Feedback from airport guests cited three areas to improve on: speed of service, order accuracy and "how to keep a consistent and cohesive experience when taking an order," MacArthur-Brooks said.

"I can honestly tell you that self-order kiosks was that solution," MacArthur-Brooks said. "Our sales for average ticket are going through the roof." He further noted there is a $2.50 uptick in kiosk check sizes. "You eliminate the guilt there."

The kiosks also reduced customer wait times and improved back-of-the-house efficiency, all of which helped the bottom line.

"It helped make sure the experience was consistent, no matter if there was a language barrier and if a guest didn't understand or had never been to a Burger King before," MacArthur-Brooks said. At a kiosk you can see pictures and select what you want.

As a result, Burger King recently mandated a minimum of four self-order kiosks in all new and remodeled restaurants.

One of the challenges in introducing technology is that it's hard to measure the impact of digital until you scale it, Thompson said.

When you don't know what the ROI should be on equipment, it's hard to have a clear story for the finance overseers or the IT people.

To get a better handle on digital adoption, HMSHost built an airport style restaurant with self-order kiosks in a street location in Washington, D.C. The digital adoption at this location rose from 2022 to 2023 and leveled off at around 75% of all guests.

One of the main benefits digital adoption offered was it stabilized the manual labor requirements across varying levels of customer traffic, Thompson said. This did not reduce the employee headcount, but stabilized it.

"The digital absorbs the incremental business," he said. "It creates this wonderful customer experience.

"Rather than have these spikes where operators are taken away from customer service, you have a much more level staffing, and that creates all kinds of efficiencies within the business.

"I don't need to go from six people on shift to 11 people on shift seemingly overnight," Thompson said. "If that's your job to go from six to 11 people, that is a lot of work. You've got to hire, you've got to interview, you've got to train — you've got to do all of those things.

"Primarily it (digital adoption) impacts the operator's job and it enables the operator to deliver a much better experience for first their employees, and by extension, their customers."

Digital transformation continues

HMSHosts' airport dining experience has since expanded to include different digital offerings for different customer needs.

The company offers dine-in, QSRs, grab-and-go kiosks and Starbucks.

Dine-in restaurants have QR code ordering at the table which lets the guest order at their own pace. In conjunction with QR code ordering, dine-in offers OpenTable, a virtual wait list.

"It's really magic," Thompson said for OpenTable. "You get a text when your table's ready."

Starbucks uses mobile pay. Guests can place orders as soon as they get off a terminal train and pick up near the gate.

Collaboration needed

Digital transformation requires a collaboration among the constituents, Thompson said, including the airports, the brands and IT.

Within the organization, Thompson said having people that are good with partnerships is critical. "It's about being aligned to the relationship from top to bottom," he said.

"When IT takes the approach of enabling the business, enabling the customer to have a better experience … imagining a world where things can work beautifully for the customer and not say something like, 'well that's not possible.'"

Hand in hand with IT is operations. "Operations (not IT) owns the guest," he said.

One of the most important factors in any business transformation is the leadership, Thompson said. He was fortunate to have his CEO's support.

Burger King, for its part, has taken lessons learned during the pandemic to other aspects of its business, MacArthur-Brooks said. Eighty-five percent of Burger King restaurants are in neighborhoods and 75% of the orders pre-pandemic were coming from drive-thru. It jumped to 93% in the pandemic.

"It forced us as a brand to rethink how our customers are experiencing our drive-thrus," he said.

During the question-and-answer period, both speakers agreed there is an opportunity to use loyalty rewards more, following Starbucks' lead.

"The earlier the consumer can place their order, the better everything just works," Thompson said. "It is the absolute most efficient experience you can have. You just don't wait in line."

Asked about offering subscription programs, both speakers said there is a future for these but neither organization has deployed them.

Will the kiosk go away in favor of mobile? Thompson said there is a segment that wants to use the newest tech. But they need to keep the human touch. Older consumers may prefer to use the kiosk than the phone since they're easier to see.

"It's going to be something for everyone," Thompson said.